Chapman_is_Gone said:
GMP said:
Chapman_is_Gone said:
The Giants have the second highest payroll in baseball at $208M.
The Dodgers have the third highest payroll in baseball at $186M.
Given the fact that either the Giants or the Dodgers has, on average, spent 2x more on its players than has its opponent on any given day and 3x-4x more in the case of the smallest market teams, surely any win by your teams must feel very hollow in your heart.
You all are the USC of baseball, and it's nothing to be proud of.
70 years ago, Cal was the USC of football - and it's something we'd all like to return to.
More to the point - a team like the early to mid '00s Yankees might feel hollow. When all you do is go out and buy the best players that other teams drafted and developed, there's a mercenary aspect that probably does feel a little hollow. But for the most part the Giants and Dodgers recent successes have been on the backs of players that each team drafted and developed. Those players came up with the team, and as fans we'd read snippets of, "Boy, that Posey sure is good," or "Just wait till Seager is ready." Then the players arrive, and they're good, and you win. And if later your team pays them to keep them, as with guys like Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Posey, Belt, Crawford and many other homegrown guys that came up with the Giants and your payroll goes up, that's just the cost of doing business. Yes, signing free agents is part of the game, but it's not sustainable - you're usually paying for past performance and overpaying for future performance. The Giants core has gotten older, and thus worse and expensive, but no - the wins don't feel hollow.
I agree that success in baseball requires a certain percentage of excellent home-grown players. But that story alone is far too simplistic.
A team has to be rich to hold onto those players. You imply that any team could have held onto the Giants' core and ridden it to above $200M--that is blatantly untrue--and also added the free agents the Giants added. I'm sure the Padres would have LOVED to have kept Adrian Gonzalez in 2010, but they couldn't afford to spend on just one roster spot what the market offered for Gonzalez, so Gonzalez played out the past 7 years for the Red Sox and Dodgers -- the two richest teams. I could give you 100 of these examples. Kansas City. Tampa Bay. Milwaukee.
And it sure is easier to have quality "home-grown" players when a rich team can throw around millions of dollars in the international free agent market to 16 and 17-year olds.
On top of that, having quality "home-grown" players usually isn't enough. Not only can the richest teams throw money at the best proven free agents, they can afford to make mistakes on those decisions and have that money sit on the bench if necessary. The small market teams do not have that luxury--they have to eat their mistakes out on the field.
Finally, just like we see with Cal not being able to afford the best coaching salaries (down to the level of the assistants), the exact same thing plays out in baseball. The rich teams are able to pay far more for the best front offices, the best minor league staffs and facilities, and the best scouts.
If what I'm saying weren't true, then small market teams wouldn't currently be subscribing to the Houston Astros' "firesale" approach where the roster is completely burned down in order to target a narrow "window of opportunity" to win as the only way to possibly win a title. That's not a healthy environment when teams are choosing to go that route.
Bottom line, each team starts each year with a dramatically different chance to succeed. The game as it is currently played is not at all fair. But I know human nature far too well to expect anyone to feel hollow about wins.
I'm not really saying that. The Giants core is mostly homegrown, and some of it is still cheap. But if they couldn't afford to keep guys like Posey and Bumgarner, they'd trade them away for cheaper talent. I take it you're a Padres fan? Let's explore your example: Adrian Gonzalez. Gonzalez was a very good player in San Diego, and they traded him after his age 28 season - the historical age when players begin to decline. Sure enough, in his age 27-29 seasons (the first two in SD, the final one being in Boston) he averaged 6 WAR. At age 30, he dropped to an average WAR of 4 for the next four seasons. In that age 30 season, his salary also jumped considerably - from $6M to $21M, and would be around there for the next six seasons.
So the Padres saved having to pay him a boatload for six pretty good and one great season, and got something in return: Anthony Rizzo, the Red Sox top prospect at the time. In the years since, after a couple slow partial seasons (ages 21-23), Rizzo averaged about 5.5 WAR per year for four years (ages 24-27). His salary those four years? About $4.5/year. In other words, the Padres did a good job avoiding paying a player for past performance and traded him for a great player who they could have paid a lot less. In this example, for some unknown to me reason, the Padres elected to turn around and deal Rizzo for Andrew Cashman after just one year. That's just bad scouting/management. If they hadn't done that, the Gonzalez deal is a phenomenal trade for San Diego.
My point is - they may be a small market team, but they can be good if they're smart. A's fans bemoan the fact that Beane trades away their best players, but if you check out who he has traded, he has done a pretty good job of dealing the guys (1) when they have a replacement in the wings, and (2) when the player is at or close to the starting his career decline.
Re your point about international players: that was once true. But, if you'e not aware, every team now has an annual international signing bonus pool hard cap. You can read more here, but this is a
tool strictly imposed to help small market teams. As is the qualifying offer/compensatory pick system, which helps small market teams by compensating them when they lose their free agents
I agree with you that not every team starts a season with the same chance of winning. That's true in all sports. And yes, in a vacuum, having a higher payroll is better. The average World Series winner since 1992 has averaged about the 7th highest payroll (last year's Astros were 18th, as they were largely homegrown). But if you're going to bemoan the fact spending more money is better than not, and the reality is some teams spend more than others, then what is the point of following the sport? I can't control the Giants' payroll. You can't control the Padres' payroll.
When the Dodgers payroll was close to $300M because they were taking on other team's bad contracts in order to also get their good, young talent (e.g., Alex Wood), I couldn't control that either. It doesn't make me throw up my hands and declare the Dodgers cheating, or accuse their fans of some weakness of character for enjoying "hollow victories". What kind of crap is that, honestly? The Padres suck right now because they do dumb things like trade Rizzo for Cashner, or trade Trea Turner and Joe Ross for Wil Myers, or sign an expensive free agent (Hosmer) to a team that has no chance of contending. They don't seem to scout well, which, contrary to your point, is relatively cheap. Scouts are not paid a lot, and so you can get good value by finding and paying good scouts to find good players.
Finally, the Padres payroll right now is $70M. Last year it was $
29M. Twenty nine! That is not due to an inability to pay. Hell, their annual local tv deal alone pays them about $30M per year. That's just being cheap.
